Worldview Basics Part 3: Apologetics and Reason’s Role

This Dicta sets forth Part 3 of a multi-part series that presents pithy Worldview building blocks outlined in bite-size digestible portions.  These will be tools for your toolboxes.  Today we discuss apologetics and its relationship to reason.  We trust this tool set will edify you as together we Inform the public, Equip the church, and Protect the future.

What is the unbeliever’s fundamental problem?  Is it a lack of will?  A lack of evidence or proof?  Can we argue someone into God’s Kingdom?  Are traditional proofs for God’s existence reliable? Do they or will they convert others?  Let’s get to the gist.

Ethics, Not Evidence:  The Unbeliever’s Fundamental Problem

Apologetics is commanded by God’s word; it’s not optional, particularly for church officers.¹  Some folks become particularly zealous for apologetic encounters, learning verbal jujitsu and slam dunk answers – dominating their opponents – though often without gentleness or respect.  The manner of apologetics is also morally required, but I digress.

The point here is that some people become so consumed with apologetics that they act as if having the right answers is all that really matters. They presume proof equals persuasion.  More importantly, they forget that pilling on evidence and offering, for example, detailed archeological factoids fails to address the fundamental issue presented by the unbeliever:  unbelievers don’t lack knowledge; they suppress it in unrighteousness.  Their problem is ethical, not evidential.  Paul could not be more clear:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.²

Unbelievers are therefore ethical rebels; they shake their fist at Him while benefiting from all the good gifts He has given them.  They are, like Cornelius Van Til once quipped, a naughty little girl sitting on her Daddy’s lap slapping him.  She could not have slapped him unless she was perched on his lap.  As Van Til illustrated this point:

The ultimate source of truth in any field rests in him. The world may discover much truth without owning Christ as Truth. Christ upholds even those who ignore, deny, and oppose him. A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the father holds it on his knee. So modern science, modern philosophy, and modern theology may discover much truth. Nevertheless, if the universe were not created and redeemed by Christ no man could give himself an intelligible account of anything. It follows that in order to perform their task aright the scientist and the philosopher as well as the theologian need Christ.³

So, the problem is ethical, not evidential.  We must not lose sight of this key point.  So why bother doing apologetics?  Does this mean we become fatalists?  What about reason?  Does reasoning matter with unbelievers who suppress the truth?  It certainly does to Paul.

The Role of Reason

Consider Paul.  He vigorously reasoned – to the point of shedding tears – with unbelievers:

And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,⁴

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So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.⁵

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And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. the point of shedding tears – with unbelievers.⁶

And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.⁷

And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.⁸

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But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.⁹

And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”¹⁰

So, the apologetic manner – gentleness and respect – must employ the correct apologetic method – sanctified reasoning. This includes reasoning with unbelievers.  Yet, it’s at this point, we need to further understand how Scripture views reason itself: It’s neither a panacea, nor a pitfall. 

Pilot Error:  The Noetic¹¹ Effects of Sin v. Assuming Something Like Unaided Reason

The realities conveyed by the Bible do not disappear simply because they are ignored, whether through ignorance or by design.  For example, Nazis claimed that Jews were not human.  Yet, every Jew exterminated at Dachau had been made in the image of God.

One of the revolutionary claims of Christianity involves the shift from shame to sin.¹²  A culture predicated on shame behaves very differently from one based on sin.  The latter includes sin’s remedy:  redemption and reconciliation.  The “category” of sin “behaves differently” from the “category” of shame.  Yet, whether acknowledged culturally or not, sin remains a reality that impacts reality, including humanity’s faculties.  Some apologetic methods on occasion ignore or downplay the reality of sin’s pervasiveness, and by sidelining theology and this theological category (hamartiology), likewise set aside sin clouding the apologetic discourse.  “Let’s just reason with them on neutral ground, letting the facts speak for themselves; people are turned off by the negative talk about sin.” But there’s more.  Sin causes an additional problem for apologetic conversations in addition to being a disfavored or awkward category.

The Fall of man is totalistic in the sense that sin affects every aspect of reality, including creation.¹³  Scripture also teaches that sin impacts mankind’s thinking, distorting his reasoning – in other words, the notion of “unaided” or unfallen reason is illusory.  Scripture’s witness is unmistakable:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.¹⁴

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,¹⁵

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.¹⁶

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,¹⁷

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.¹⁸

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.¹⁹

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.²⁰

Accordingly, our fallen minds must be opened and renewed – not merely “topped off” with evidence or new facts:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.²¹

and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,²²

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,²³

Our thinking must be comprehensively re-oriented: 

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,²⁴

The reality of this noetic effect of sin²⁵ spawns consequences, particularly for those apologetic advocates who seek to “put aside” theology or special revelation and just “deal neutrally” with unbelievers.  Someone quite familiar with the natural law tradition and apologetics, which champions reason, (Pope Benedict XVI), who’s also a stellar theologian, recognizes this problem:

Of course, the attempt to use a strictly autonomous reason that refuses to know about faith, to pull ourselves out of the slough of uncertainties by our own hair, so to speak, can hardly succeed in the end.  For human reason is not autonomous at all.  It is always living in one historical context or other.²⁶

How can one reliably trust fallen supposedly autonomous reason to propel proper moral conclusions, let alone conversion?  At some point the apologetics enterprise needs the corrective lens of what is called – mixing the metaphor – “both books” – creation and revelation:  they go together.²⁷ Invoking and relying on reason alone – without accounting for noetic sin and thereby ignoring revelational insight and correction – will collide with ethical reality and ultimately leave the advocate ethically disarmed.²⁸  Apologetics cannot ultimately succeed without accounting for this reality.  As one man put it, faith and reason must go together.²⁹

Reason therefore is not an autonomous judge, but rather a tool dependent on God and His word.  We should never shed Scripture as we engage with unbelief.  Because in “[God’s] light do we see light”³⁰ And this no less true for the unbeliever than it is for the believer.

Next, we will survey how best to tactically – and tactfully – use reason as a tool when encountering unbelief, including surveying some “bad” arguments for God’s existence.  Until then, here’s a preview:

      Answer not a fool according to his folly,

            lest you be like him yourself.

      Answer a fool according to his folly,

            lest he be wise in his own eyes.³¹

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1. 1 Peter 3:15; Titus 1:9 ↩︎
2. Romans 1:18, 19 ↩︎
3. Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism (1979),147-148 ↩︎
4. Acts 17:2 – notice he did not set aside his theological commitment to God’s word as some modern “rational” apologists do today. ↩︎
5. Acts 17:17 ↩︎
6. Acts 18:4 ↩︎
7. Acts 18:19 ↩︎
8. Acts 19:8 ↩︎
9. Acts 19:9 ↩︎
10. Acts 24:25 ↩︎
11. “Noetic” comes from the Greek term nous, which means “mind.” ↩︎
12. Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin:  The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2016) ↩︎
13. Romans 8:19-23: creation itself “awaits” release from sin’s bondage.  ↩︎
14. Romans 8:5-7 ↩︎
15. Romans 1:21,22 ↩︎
16. Eph. 4:17 ↩︎
17. Col. 1:21 ↩︎
18. 2 Cor. 3:14 ↩︎
19. 2 Cor. 4:4 ↩︎
20. Titus. 1:15 ↩︎
21. Romans 12:2 ↩︎
22. Eph. 4:23 ↩︎
23. Luke 24:44,45 ↩︎
24. 2 Cor. 10:5 ↩︎
25. Parsing the implications stemming from this reality quickly becomes nuanced and complicated.  See, e.g. “Noetic Effects of Sin” Objections, https://www.reformedclassicalist.com/home/noetic-effects-of-sin-objection; see also, David Haines, Thomas Aquinas on Total Depravity and the Noetic Effects of Sin, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/thomas-aquinas-on-total-depravity-and-the-noetic-effects-of-sin/ and Dewy J. Hoitenga, The Noetic Effects of Sin:  A Review Article, https://www.calvin.edu/library/database/crcpi/fulltext/ctj/88052.pdf  The simple point here is that one cannot simply or glibly invoke “unaided reason” as if that human faculty is unaffected by sin.  Yet, “reason” often carries a heavy, but leaky, bucket of water in apologetic encounters. ↩︎
26. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance – Christian Belief and the World Religions (2003), 135-36.  It may well be that Ratzinger, as a theologian, rather than being a philosopher, grants more gravitas to the Scripture’s witness to the noetic effects of sin.  Philosophers tend to rely more on reason; theologians tend to rely more on revelation ↩︎
27. Briani Mattson, The Two Books Go Together – On Natural Theology, https://brianmattson.substack.com/p/the-two-books-go-together  See also, N.T Wright, Eschatology and History:  Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (2019).  Further note that Paul confesses he “would not have known” what it meant to covet unless the law [special revelation] had so informed him.  (Rom.7:7).  Plainly, natural law discerned with reason alone is not as comprehensive as, nor co-extensive with, the Law of God. ↩︎
28. Imagine encountering a wild-eyed crazed person wielding a large knife; his aim is clearly to harm or kill you.  You possess a firearm, present it, and in a confident voice, command him:  “Stop!  This is a loaded Colt .45”  He looks and laughs at you and yells:  “I don’t believe in guns, and I certainly don’t believe in YOUR gun.”  What do you do?  Do you say, “Ok, since you don’t believe in guns or my gun, I won’t use it”?  Hardly; instead you stop the threat.  Setting aside the truth of Christianity to attempt to prove and persuade someone of Christianity’s truth presents a similar defectively disarmed approach. ↩︎
29. Fides et Ratio, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html. Note the title’s intentional use of the conjunctive – “and” [et] – not the disjunctive “or” [aut]; this idea is to link – not separate – faith and reason. ↩︎
30. Ps. 36:9b ↩︎
31. Prov. 26:4, 5 ↩︎